Election SOS Trusted Elections Expert Network: After The Count
By Patricia McMahon
Election SOS
In just five weeks as part of the lead-up to the 2020 Election, Election SOS and The American Press Institute gathered more than 270 experts into a diverse and powerful directory to provide journalists with reliable sources for their election coverage. This Election SOS Trusted Elections Experts Network is one of the several anticipated needs and tools we imagined journalists, newsrooms and journalism schools would need to cover the volatile 2020 election.
Why we created the Election SOS Trusted Elections Expert Network
The talented explainers
Journalists use the research of our experts and present them into relatable context to their audience. The reporter’s ability to explain the decision of an elected official’s policy impacts the public’s well-being. Data are essential in closing the knowledge gap compared to anecdotal evidence of a pundit. Paired together, you may get a thoughtful plan to steer people to what is known and what questions to ask.
We feature important research that doesn’t have PR
At the heart of a reporter’s story are their sources. Outside of the people featured in top-tier news sites’ bylines, most community leaders, university professors and activists have been researching elections and have anticipated the potential threats to democracy and journalism.
Newsrooms and reporters have strained resources
Reporters need to take the time to verify the information they will be sharing with their audience. And as most of them are juggling diverse topics, we hope to keep them from being caught off-guard from the chaos and noise. The funding of local newsrooms is waning, and an informed electorate needs to follow the decisions and policies of their local government. Who is going to attend the late-night township and school board meetings? Study and follow arcane election rules? Interview the “just folks” in addition to the marquis names in the community?
The journalists may be the heroes of this election chapter…
But they need help telling stories of the people behind the election machinery. But something a general audience may not realize is that journalists are “trauma-facing professionals” and often need mental health coping tips to file a story and return to the field.
How we found our trusted experts
Our network criteria are based on the experts’ body of work, if they’re writing or being quoted about the election, their regional expertise, and availability to journalists when they are able. Our Election SOS team tapped into existing networks and created new relationships to produce a directory of vetted authorities on misinformation, the electoral college, voter suppression, voting rights, mail-in voting, in-person voting, vote curing, election security, journalist safety, civil unrest and immigration.
What we learned about our Election SOS Trusted Elections Expert Network
We need to connect with more experts! We set a goal to include a majority of voices from underrepresented backgrounds, and we found that despite our efforts to highlight these communities, we were challenged to find them. Journalists must prioritize more time and resources to diversify their network and close the widening culture gap. It is worth the extra steps to hire and search for a wider representation of the electorate. We want to continue to break the legacy bias of going to ‘the usual suspects’ and hope to inspire a variety of voices to join our network.
Election SOS after the count: newsrooms look to state legislatures
We are in the predictable territory of looking back at 2020, but with uncertainty looking ahead towards 2021. Outgoing President Trump continues to undermine the integrity of the election results. The next several months are critical with risks of misinformation and disinformation, and newsrooms must reimagine how they plan to cover our culturally and politically divided nation. In other words, to enable reporting to support democracy and democratic processes. Calendars should include key dates, and reporters should plan for stories about redistricting, tracking campaign finance, and dedicate more bandwidth for local government coverage. Newsletters, social media, email, webinars, workshops, trainings and podcasts can be created without going outside during this pandemic. You can use the Election SOS Trusted Elections Expert Network and First Aid Kit to cover the Georgia Senate runoffs.
Connect with some of the featured experts:
Here are some examples of our election experts appearing in news coverage nationwide.
“These kinds of acts of violence and terror have gone unchecked and tolerated for years while Black and Brown communities screamed for help from state and national officials in Georgia. All [they] did was turn a blind eye because of their allegiance to the Republican Party and not to the people.”
James Woodall for 11ALIVE. Woodall is a State President of Georgia NAACP.
“A state becomes bluer in a lot of different ways; we don’t know exactly what the tipping point was. … But we are purpling because of a variety of things. Part of that is the fact that you have these news businesses [that] are coming in and it’s keeping younger people in the state. And the movie industry is something that keeps younger people here too.”
Audrey Haynes for Variety. Haynes is an Associate Professor of Political Science at The University of Georgia.
“Statistical evidence such as this should not be necessary to cast doubt on the fraud claims being made in court by Mr. Trump’s campaign. The arguments simply are implausible on their face, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. The allegations suggest a conspiracy or a remarkable coincidence of Republican and Democratic election officials in multiple states looking past or covering up hundreds of thousands of illegal votes.”
Nathaniel Persily for The New York Times. Persily is a James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.
“The state has been changing. … This is not something that has happened over night.”
Charles Bullock for Patch. Bullock is Richard B. Russell Chair in Political Science, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor and University Professor of Public and International Affairs at The University of Georgia.
“We could do some organization here that could look different from other places. So, looking at places like Washington and Oregon that are all vote-by-mail states. We looked at different locations like Rhode Island that does risk-limiting audits on their ballots. We looked at other places that already had automatic voter registration through the DMV. And so we looked at different ways we could help modernize our elections to make sure we can have an equitable and accessible balloting process that’s easier for Georgians.”
Aunna Dennis for Democracy on the Brink. Dennis is an Executive Director at Common Cause Georgia.
“It’s checkmate in terms of the various chess moves on the board, but they could try to go for other moves anyway. … Normally when you see that it’s going to be checkmate, you sort of concede.”
Edward B. Foley for Bloomberg. Foley is an Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law and Director of Election Law at The Ohio State University.
Who we are: Election SOS is an initiative managed by the consultancy Hearken with the support of Trusting News and fiscal sponsorship from the American Press Institute. Also, thanks to generous funding from Democracy Fund and other civic-minded donors Election SOS was able to think big and listen to what we were hearing from the news community: they need more people. For more information check out The Hearkening and Election SOS newsletters.
